Runner Carries Rival: Injured Athlete Hitches a Ride in NDakota Race

A runner carried her injured rival over the finish line during the Eastern Dakota Conference Cross Country Championships in North Dakota on Saturday, proving that finishing the race isn't the only thing that counts — it's how you finish it.

"It happened instantly and felt like a pop in my knee . . . Down I went."

LeNoue had torn her patella tendon just 800 meters from the finish line.

"I felt like my leg was getting cut off . . . it was a bad pain," she explained.

That's when Devils Lake High School runner Melanie Bailey stopped to help, offering LeNoue a piggyback ride across the finish line.

"All I could think about was she was in a lot of pain. And I wanted to help her," Bailey said when asked why she stopped to help. "If I was helping her pain, then that's all that counted."

According to WDAY-TV, Bailey carried LeNoue several hundred feet before medical helpers arrived. At that point, LeNoue urged Bailey to finish the race. She ultimately finished about eight minutes after the first-place runner.

"So nice, she didn’t have to do that," said LeNoue, whose now been keeping in touch with Bailey on Facebook. "How many people ran past me? And she stopped."

"There's still good people out there, there's still hope," she concluded.

"It's just a race that's the thing. A person is forever, a race just lasts 25 minutes," said Bailey.

A runner carried her injured rival over the finish line during the Eastern Dakota Conference Cross Country Championships in North Dakota on Saturday, proving that finishing the race isn't the only thing that counts — it's how you finish it.